These 100% cotton boot socks are from Turkish Etsy shop, ScarfLovers. Each sock features half a cat face, and the socks form a complete cat face as a pair. Very cute! But if you buy a pair you may be stuck for an uncontrived way of showing your cute cat socks off to your cute cat friends. How about this for an idea: “Hey! Let’s all take our boots off and see who can get their feet the closest together…. Ooh, I win… And look, my socks are forming a cat face!” You’re welcome.

A very happy New Year to you and your cats, and what better way to start 2015 than with a giveaway. But this is no ordinary giveaway, so you’ll have to pay close attention…

Right then: the lovely Bettina, who writes Make Them Roar (the style guide for the fashionable cat – well worth subscribing to, if you don’t already), has teamed up with fellow cat woman, Merle, to create the Cat Caravan – a stunning piece of cardboard cat furniture, guaranteed to look the business in any home.

This stylish, cardboard playhouse has been designed with durability in mind, and the combination of sturdy double-walled cardboard and clever construction ensures the Cat Caravan can withstand a real battering, even from multiple cats. Check out this video of Tiger and Lilly putting a Caravan through its paces:

The Cat Caravan allows for playing/lounging on two levels, and features several peepholes, which facilitate interactive play and also provide cats with ample opportunity to spy on their humans (spying on humans has resided in the top three of the the annual feline Popular Pastimes list since its origination in Ancient Egypt in 2000 BC). And, as if all that wasn’t enough, the Caravan comes with two cute cardboard toys for additional fun.

The Caravan also has excellent eco-credentials – it’s fully recyclable, is made in Britain from 100% recycled cardboard, printed with water-based inks, and comes as a flat pack, which simply folds together without the need for glue.

General Teddington & Mr Spats – Bettina’s two Battersea rescue boys.

Now, here’s why this is a giveaway with a difference: the Cat Caravan hasn’t gone into production yet – Bettina and Merle are currently running a Cat Caravan Kickstarter campaign to gain funding for the first batch of Caravans to roll off the production line. If you’re unsure what a Kickstarter campaign involves, please click on the link above for further info, otherwise this giveaway prize may not make any sense.

OK, so now we’re all clear about what a Kickstarter campaign actually is, I can reveal the giveaway prize….. The lucky winner of the Cat Caravan giveaway will receive a £25 Kickstarter pledge in their name. This means that if the campaign is successful, the winner will get their hot little paws on a Cat Caravan, once they go into production at some point during February; but if the campaign is unsuccessful (which would be a real shame), the pledge will be converted to a £25 voucher to spend on some cool cat goodies in the Make Them Roar store – so the winner will receive a prize worth £25 whatever the outcome of the campaign.

The Cat Caravan giveaway is open to entries from anywhere in the whole world! In order to enter the giveway, all you need to do is leave a comment at the end of this post. Entries must be in before midnight 1st February 2015.

It would also be great if you could share either this post or the Cat Caravan Kickstarter page on social media, and ask your cat-minded friends and family to do the same, as the more cat people get to hear of the campaign, the more chance it has of success. The campaign ends at midnight 1st February 2015. (Sharing the campaign isn’t an entry requirement for the giveaway, it would just be very nice of you!)

And now for the giveaway rules – a dull read, but necessary for legal reasons.

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment at the end of this post. Entries must be in before midnight 1st February 2015. The winner will be selected by a random electronic draw on 1st February 2015 and notified by email. If the prize is not claimed within two weeks of notification a new winner will be selected. The winner will receive one £25 pledge for the Cat Caravan Kickstarter campaign. If the campaign is successful, the winner will receive one Cat Caravan, once they go into production during February 2015. If the campaign is unsuccessful, the winner will receive one £25 voucher during February 2015. The prize is not transferable and is dependent on the outcome of the Cat Caravan Kickstarter campaign.

It’s been a bit hectic on the fostering front over the last few weeks…. First of all there was Olive and her five kittens: Alice, George, Ivor, Jack and Nancy.

Above: Jack, Alice, Ivor and Nancy

Olive:

Olive had given birth to her kittens in someone’s garden. Fortunately the Celia Hammond Animal Trust (CHAT) were called in and came to the rescue. I took them on when the kittens were six weeks old, as their previous fosterers had a family emergency and were not longer able to care for them.

Alice and Ivor:

All the kittens had been very well socialised by the previous fosterers, and were what’s known in the cat rescue world as ‘Bomb-proof’, i.e. super-friendly, super-confident and suitable for any kind of home. Olive was nervous initially, but soon grew in confidence once she came to the conclusion that I was OK because: a) I wasn’t going to hurt her and was actually quite nice; and b) I was going to provide her with lots of food. Actually it was mainly b) – Olive loves her food!

Nancy and George

Olive and her kittens were with me for around a month before they went to the CHAT Lewisham rescue centre for rehoming. As you can imagine it didn’t take long to find homes for this bunch of cuties, and they were all adopted (in pairs) within a couple of weeks.

Ivor’s magic wand tail!

After Olive and co. departed I decided to take a break from fostering. I’ve fostered almost continuously for around five years now and was feeling a bit burnt out. I planned to stop fostering all together for a few months and then act as an emergency-only fosterer for Cats Protection. Just in case you’re wondering why I’ve changed charity: I’ve been volunteering in the Cats Pro Greenwichcharity shop for nearly four years now (18 Old Dover Rd, SE3 7BT – always good for a bargain if you’re in the area!). Earlier this year I was asked to join the branch committee, and since then have become a lot more involved in the cats side of things. I’m now the branch’s Homing Officer, and it doesn’t really sit comfortably with me to be fostering for one charity while rehoming cats for another, so hence the switch from CHAT to Cats Pro.

Anyway, the not fostering thing lasted for less than two weeks after a woman came into the Cats Pro charity shop and told me that she’d found a male kitten wandering up and down a very busy road. She’d already been caring for the kitten for nearly three weeks – while she’d tried unsuccessfully to locate an owner – but was unable to do so any longer as her dog was becoming jealous and she was worried he may lash out. I went to scan for a microchip (there wasn’t one), and discovered that the kitten was in fact female, around six months old and hadn’t been spayed. There was nowhere else for the kitten to go other than back out on the street, so that evening, on my way home from the shop, I called round to collect Susie – as she’d already been named – and took her home with me.

Susie:

I wasn’t too concerned at having my fostering break interrupted as Susie is an incredibly friendly, affectionate and generally bomb-proof kinda girl, who I knew would be easy to re-home. I’d made a couple of home visits to prospective adopters earlier the same day, and thought that Susie would be ideal for one of the couples I’d been to see. I rang them, they were very keen, and we made arrangements for them to come and meet Susie after she’d been spayed, microchipped and had her first vaccinations. They came round this afternoon, it was love at first sight, they adopted her, and off she went to her new home. I’ve since had a text to let me know that she settled in straight away. Hooray!

But I still don’t get to take my fostering break. On Monday I received a call from our Welfare Officer, who’s a veterinary nurse at a rescue-minded practice which carries out a lot of procedures for our branch. They’d taken in a young female for a neuter-and-return – she was one of a small group of cats who live in the underground car park of a housing estate and are fed and cared for by one of the residents. However, when they examined her they discovered an old infected *collar wound under her right leg. The wound needed surgery, which in turn required external stitches and then a buster collar (aka Cone of Shame) to prevent the cat from worrying at the stitches. Obviously she couldn’t be returned to the car park in that condition, so now Holly (as I’ve imaginatively named her, given the time of year) is Foster Cat no. 34.

Holly

The good news is that Holly is a charming, people-friendly, affectionate adolescent kitten (she’s around 9 – 10 months old), and I’m pretty sure I’ve already found her a home. So once the stitches are out hopefully she’ll be off to pastures new, and I’ll restart my fostering break. Wonder how long it will last this time?!

*Collar wounds are inflicted by cat collars with an elastic insert which allows the collar to stretch if it becomes snagged on anything, so that the cat can escape. The trouble with these collars is that they will also stretch if a cat paws at them, allowing the cat to pass one of its front legs through the collar, which then rapidly cuts into the ‘armpit’ area of the leg causing a nasty and very painful injury. These elasticated collars are sold as ‘safety’ collars which really pisses me off as they’re not – strays with collar wounds are all too common. A genuine safety collar will have a break-away buckle, which allows the collar to snap open when snagged, therefore making it impossible for a cat to step through the collar and rip its ‘armpit’ open.

The Latest Mews is a humorous take on the world from a feline perspective, and would make a great Christmas gift for any cat lover. Actually, I’d better make that any cat lover over the age of 12, as a couple of the cartoons contain very minor swearage.

Many of the cartoons are based around visual puns and witty one-liners, so if you’re a fan of comedians like Tim Vine and Milton Jones, you’ll definitely appreciate Anthony Smith’s cat cartoons.

To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment at the end of this post and also pop over to the Learn to Speak Cat Facebook page and give that a like. ENTRIES FOR THIS GIVEAWAY MUST BE IN BEFORE MIDNIGHT ON THURSDAY 18th DECEMBER so that I can post the book to the winner on the 19th, which should mean it to arrives in time for Christmas – providing the postal gods are with us, that is.

Giveaway rules: This giveaway is only open to entries from UK addresses. Entries must be in before midnight on 18/12/2014. To enter you must leave a comment at the end of this post and also ‘Like’ the Learn to Speak Cat Facebook page. The winner will receive one copy of The Latest Mews – Learn to Speak Cat 2 by Anthony Smith, which will be posted by Royal Mail 1st Class on Friday 19th December 2014.

If you’re looking for a Yuletide treat for a fellow cat person, here’s a selection of seven small gifts or stocking fillers, which should be sufficiently unisex to appeal to that elusive creature, the Cat Man. And, in keeping with the Christmas tradition of goodwill, three of the products I’ve featured are being sold in aid of charities, so if you buy one of these you’re really giving a double gift – one to the charity and one to the recipient of your pressie. Which is very nice indeed.

First up these very debonair Purrtrait Cat Coasters by Simon Hart (above). A series of nine coasters featuring close up portraits of various cat breeds. £4.00 each.

Everyone loves a cat mug, and any recipient of a Cats Mug by Amy Fenton is bound to be tickled pink. £9.95 each – all proceeds from the sales of this mug will go to ArtHouse Meath, a project which showcases the talents of adults living with severe epilepsy, learning and physical difficulties.

I have these Unexpected Item cotton totes for sale in the Cool for Cats UK Etsy shop, priced at £9.00 each. All profits from sales will be donated to the Celia Hammond Animal Trust, a cat rescue and neutering charity which also runs affordable veterinary clinics for pet owners on low incomes.

This Eco-friendly Mousemat featuring a very content – or possibly even smug – tabby is made from 22 recycled vending cups. Priced at a very reasonable £4.25 – proceeds go to Animal Aid, a UK charity which fights animal abuse and promotes a cruelty-free lifestyle.

The Kitty Coin Bank provides a much cuter alternative to jam jars or the back of the sofa when it comes to finding somewhere to stash your small change – place a coin on the lid and a little kitty pops out, snatches your cash and then meows a thank you before disappearing back into the box. Priced at £14.99 (requires 2 AA batteries).

A bottle opener will always come in handy, especially during the Festive Season, and these Cat Paw Bottle Openers are a snip at just £2.29 (inc free UK delivery). Admittedly the pink one doesn’t exactly fulfill this post’s unisex brief, but the rest of them are OK.

And finally, Eleanor and Vincent Salt and Peppers Shakers, priced at £16.50 – part of the lovely Moggie range by Quail. A bit on the random side as a choice of stocking filler maybe, but nevertheless unisex, useful, and visually appealing to cat lovers!

If you weren’t lucky enough to win but would still like the opportunity to get your hands on a unique cardboard scratcher and earn a place in your cat’s heart for all eternity, check out the 3 Fat Cats online shop.